What's weird about item #1 is blatantly obvious. (Again, I'm supressing the strong desire to go on about this for several thousand words. Feel free to do so yourself if you like; that's what the internet is for, right?) What's weird about item #2 is that it brings back unhappy memories of the last time I heard "Barbara Ann" become "Bomb Iran," way back during the hostage crisis that gave the world Ted Koppel--only back then it was being used by folks who thought the reworked title phrase was a good idea. In other words, it only had one layer of ironic distance, not two.

And I have to say, I can't really stomach either version. Not because they desecrate a timeless classic; I've always found that song fairly annoying, even more so now that I realize its early and key role in transforming the band from musical innovators into an oldies act. (People do tend to forget that the Beach Boys' rendition was itself a self-conscious/jokey/ironic cover version of an older song that already sounded quaintly dated when they recorded it.) No, the problem is just that the parodies are both so damn obvious, no matter what the agenda behind them and no matter how many levels of irony they invite.